


Snapshots

by inkpink



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dave Hates Drake, F/F, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, SBaHJ - Freeform, Unrequited Love, Vodka Mewtini
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2016-06-21
Packaged: 2018-07-16 10:40:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7264711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkpink/pseuds/inkpink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's no time like the present to go back to the past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snapshots

Today, Bro asks you what you want to do with your life. You try not to look too caught off guard, and mumble something about film school. Bro gives a short, barked laugh, and ruffles your hair. It stings.

“Good luck, kid,” he chuckles, and leaves you to your own devices, which happen to be a bowl of half-finished Spaghettios. You consider the question as you dump the dregs of cold, grease-topped pasta into the sink. Film school would be nice, but you doubt you’ve got the profile to get in. You’re sure you lack the money to attend. The only thing you’ve been working on is your admittedly shitty comic, something that at this point, you can't tell if you’re halfassing or you really are that talentless. 

When you attempt to realistically visualize your future, you see something closer to a DJing gig at Can Town, the only club downtown shitty enough to hire an amateur like you. Especially when Bro’s available.

You used to be better than this. You spent your days frolicking in fields, flaming Drake until you set off the school fire alarm, and snapping Polaroids wherever you went like the dorky, unaware hipster you were.

Okay, you’re glad as fuck that the “dorky hipster” stage of your life is through, but you took some pretty sick pics while you were at it.

You abandon your bowl and amble into your room, where the photos taped up all over your crimson walls bear witness to this: blurry shots of Rose’s smirk, Jade’s toothy grin, and John’s blinding smile, his arm slung over their glitter-speckled shoulders. The three of them in formalwear, you notably absent because you’d been behind the camera. You took that one at the 8th grade dance, despite swearing you wouldn't show. 

_ In 8th grade, there is a formal at the end of the year. Girls chatter about baring everything but their shoulders, and boys debate the merits of using hair gel vs. being called a dweeb for the rest of their middle school careers. Jade and Rose fuss half-heartedly about dresses.  _

_ John asks you, in passing, if you’re going. You shrug and laugh and push at his shoulder, fingers burning where they touch him. _

_ “Nah, Egdork. School dances are for lameasses.”  _

_ This is before you learn to swear properly, not that John can tell.  _

_ His brows furrow and then he laughs, teeth crooked and eyes crinkling up. Even now, buried beneath baby fat and blue-banded braces, he is ridiculously gorgeous.  _

_ You know his dad will make him go, and you don't want to stand there and see him in his suit, watch him pal around with Rose and Jade and spoil it by sulking because you’re not man enough to ask him to dance.  _

_ You couldn't go if you wanted to, you say, because Bro’s not around to drive you and the usual bike to school can't be done in slacks.  _

_ You manage. _

2 AM flash-shots of John, his eyes bleary and expression betrayed.

_ In the summer, you pedal to his house nearly every day. From there, you horse around on the green spring rider in his backyard or Dadbert relents and drives you two to the sweet shop in town. You give 50-cent Popsicles terrible blowjobs and laugh yourselves sick. You drown high school jitters in chlorine and sunburn, and soak in the feeling of John, John, John. _

Your own pale, bruised knees, plastered with garish Band-Aids.

_ Freshman year, you stop biking and learn to ride a skateboard. You are so fucking cool. _

_ You skin both your knees about a million times, and John takes to buying silly Band-Aids to keep on him. You ridicule them when you’re together, but when you’re alone they make you think of him, and there’s no way you’d peel that grinning Muppet off your shin if John’s put it there.  _

A crow crumpled on the sidewalk pavement, developed in greyscale.

_ Bro gets a job at a steakhouse, and thus is gone most nights. On his days off, you’re told to stay out of the house, which you strongly suspect has to do with the tan, green-eyed boy you see leaving your apartment on Tuesday mornings. _

Jade, holding up her Science Bowl medal and looking as though she’s about to piss herself from disbelief.

_ Your group attempts to stay  _ _ afloat, amidst the flood of new experiences that high school brings _ _. John hosts movie nights. You listen uninterestedly to Rose’s latest fanfiction plans, fighting sleep. You all travel out to watch Jade’s Science Bowl final.  _

_ Rose comes out to people other than John’s golden retriever, Casey, and meets friends who will oblige her more esoteric interests.  _

_ Jade gets into a chem class two grades ahead, and suddenly becomes best friends with a cheery girl named Feferi Peixes.  _

_ You and John stick together, because your new high school is huge and your heart still flutters when he laughs at you. You take to holding his gaze for too long, which makes him giggle. For your birthday, he gets you the douchiest pair of aviators and you stay up ‘til 3 AM watching Cage flicks and burying your face in his shoulder. He smells like almonds, and dryer sheets. _

_ Freshman year is so good, though you don't fully comprehend that until it’s gone.  _

John poised behind a tree, the mammoth camcorder he’d gotten for Christmas that year in his hands.

_ That’s the summer that John goes to film camp and gets a whole new crew. Vriska, Jake, and Jane all seem okay, you guess, but none of them skateboard and none read your comic so you ollie right outie of that situation.  _

The shittiest skateboard in existence, its green base scuffed.

_ Sophomore year you still skateboard, because you’re a fucking idiot, but you’ve gotten better.  _

A spray of Pokémon cards on singed carpet, dragon stuffed animals scattered amongst them.

_ You start hanging out with Terezi Pyrope, a redhead with a draconic grin who insists that Charizard is the best starter. With her comes Karkat Vantas, a boy as mean as Bro but sillier, like a Hogwarts boggart. You don't work to impress him and you like the way it pisses him off when he can't take his eyes off you between classes. _

_ It’s nice to feel like you’re someone worth pining after. _

A silhouette of Rose on her front steps, shoulders curled to shield the black bloom in her hands. 

_ You only remember that Rose exists because her girlfriend thinks you’re scum. You know that Kanaya Maryam thinks you’re scum because she tells you so, after Rose’s mom dies and you fail to show at the funeral. You barely have the heart to insist that you’re not.  _

_ You show up to Rose’s house with a handful of her namesake - black, even though you’re not sure if she’s still doing the whole goth thing. She accepts them graciously and hugs you too tightly. She seems okay, but so did you when Bro broke your wrist two months ago, so you insist on bringing her soda that she won't drink and the shittiest chips you can find, just to make her house feel more alive. You leave copies of SBAHJ, printed on your failing Laserjet, strewn across the marble. It’s a mess, but you swear you see Rose smile when she opens the fridge to find Geromy’s scribbly yellow ass fraternizing with the takeout. _

An awkward shot taken from above of you, Jade, Rose, and John. Your heads are together and you’re all sporting double chins from the angle.

_ Jade comes over, then John, and it’s surreal to see all four of you in one room. You haven't been together since middle school. It’s strange, and none of you quite know what to do with yourselves. _

_ John suggests Con Air. Jade digs around for Monopoly. Rose offers to read your palms. _

_ You end up lying on Rose’s carpet, just talking.  _

_ Jade tells you how her big white dog, Becquerel, ate a whole steak, and about accidentally killing all her grandpa’s pumpkins. John mentions his latest YouTube work, a spoof of Ghostbusters, Little Monsters, and National Treasure all at once. It sounds awful, but he’s so excited about it that you can't help but grin. Rose mostly listens, which, if you remember correctly, is a gigantic rarity. You break in at random with bad raps and long innuendos. You poke fun at Rose about Kanaya, and John about some chick that he keeps mentioning, someone named Roxy, which you regret immediately because the flush that steals across his cheeks only makes you ache for him more.  _

Karkat, lips kiss-swollen and looking like he wants to kill you while Terezi cackles behind him, a bottle of half-drained Faygo in her teal-lacquered fingers. 

_ Junior year, John takes Roxy Lalonde to prom. You know about it because the entire school does, after John presents her with a jet black kitten with a “Prom?” note attached to its collar. Bitterly, you joke with Terezi about the inopportune name Roxy has graced it with - Vodka Mewtini. Terezi says that she probably named it after one of her favorite things. You argue that in that case, the cat should have been named John.  _

_ “The cat’s a girl, numbskull,” Karkat snarks, and that’s the end of that. _

_ You spend prom night in Terezi’s basement, watching terrible romantic comedies with she and Karkat. Her older sister Latula is upstairs with her friends, and she smells like smoke when she brings down the cheap pizza you guys ordered. _

_ You kiss Karkat in a blur of bad lighting and worse music. You’re in the car on the way to pick up more Faygo, the atrocity that is “Hotline Bling” blasting from the dash. You’re just about to start ripping into it when his brow crinkles and you’re reminded of a boy with blue, blue eyes and you can't help it if that’s who you’re thinking of when Karkat sighs onto your lips. _

Karkat again, staring defiantly into the camera. Dark circles haunt his undereyes and his freckles are rendered in startling hi-def. His lip looks mid-curl, and you’re willing to bet he was seconds away from verbally handing your ass to you.

_ You guess you date, because you kiss when you’re sad and he’s angry, and whenever the two of you are lonely. You kiss a lot. _

Bro with his katana, mid-strife, which earned you three aching bruises across your ribs for losing focus. 

_ Senior year, you walk. You walk every day through a haze of college applications and fake bliss, nursing last night’s wounds and prepping for the ones to come. You walk towards an inauspicious future, towards forever, march right into the daily grind and straight on until goddamn morning.  _

You step away from your walls, as the gleeful gazes of your friends are starting to feel more like accusatory glares.

You need to get out of this apartment.

You shoulder the bag that follows you everywhere, ever since Bro tried to kick you out junior year and you had to crash at Terezi’s, and head to the park.

You find a nice, unoccupied bench in the shade of a tree that you’ve no doubt dozens of wonderful couples have picnicked beneath. You tune your headphones to your own beats because you’re shit and can't be bothered with anyone else, and close your eyes.

Less than 30 seconds pass before a voice breaks through your thoughts.

“Hey, Dave?”

You swear you haven't heard his voice in years, despite having practically memorized the face of his younger self. 

“Huh?” you ask, jerking your headphones out of your ears and glancing up to meet a pair of baby blues that have haunted your best dreams and graced your worst nightmares. 

The face that’s staring back at you is a love letter between boyhood and a Greek fucking god. John is wide-eyed, radiating perfection to the point that it has to be something mythological. 

He has the same glasses. 

“It’s me, John. John Egbert. You remember me, right? We were best friends freshman year.”

_ And 6th grade and 7th and 8th,  _ you add silently.

You contemplate making him wait, making him experience a fraction of the longing you’ve felt all your life. 

Instead, you settle for a wry smile. 

“Egdork. Long time no see.”

He breaks into a grin and you feel like sobbing. 

“Yeah, same to you. Listen, my friends ditched me, do you want to go get some ice cream?”

You must look put out, because his teeth find his lip - no braces, you notice - and his smile turns a little nervous at the corners, like maybe he’s worried you won't accept.

“C’mon, Strider, it’ll be my treat.”

Your heart melts against your will.

“Yeah, okay. Dairy Queen though, McDonald’s is shit.”

“I was thinking Ben and Jerry’s.”

“What am I, made of money?”

“ _ I’m  _ paying, Dave!”

You settle into your old routine so easily that for a second, it’s hard to believe that you and John were ever apart. It’s hard to believe that you ever left 8th grade, that you are standing here at the brink of senior year, that you have truly stopped loving him.

Oh, wait.  
That last one still needs some work. 


End file.
